Share This Story!

American, JetBlue terminating frequent-flier pact

American Airlines and JetBlue are terminating their frequent-flier partnership. Implemented in 2010, the pact had allowed customers to earn miles or points on the some other carrier's flights. In a statement

Tags

American Airlines and JetBlue are terminating their frequent-flier partnership. Implemented in 2010, the pact had allowed customers to earn miles or points on some of the other carrier's flights from New York JFK and Boston.

In a joint statement released Monday morning by the airlines, the carriers say they will "no longer accept new interline sales for travel on the other carrier." And starting April 1, customers will no longer receive miles or points for eligible flights operated by the other airline.

Similarly, JetBlue customers could earn JetBlue points on 15 AA routes to overseas destinations that JetBlue did not serve. The international AA destinations eligible for JetBlue points included routes from New York and Boston to destinations such as London, Paris, Tokyo and Buenos Aires.

The airlines say all reciprocal miles and points already earned through the deal will be credited to customers' accounts. The carriers add that "the two airlines are working together to ensure these changes have little impact to customers."

The airlines' move to launch their frequent-flier pact in 2010 came shortly after JetBlue agreed to trade some of its landing rights at New York JFK -- where both AA and JetBlue have hubs -- for access to some of AA's slots at Washington's Reagan National Airport. That allowed JetBlue to begin service to that capacity controlled airport near downtown D.C.

The AA-JetBlue pact allowed the carriers to offer reciprocal frequent-flier benefits and funnel connecting passengers to each other's flights on routes they had little overlap.

There had been speculation about whether the alliance would continue following American's merger with US Airways.

Including routes flown by US Airways, the "new" post-merger American now overlaps on JetBlue with some of the domestic routes that currently are part of the partnership. American confirmed that was a motivating factor in ending the agreement.

In a statement to Today in the Sky, American says:

"Through the merger with US Airways, American's network along the East Coast provides greater connectivity and customer benefits and as a result, there is no longer a need to supplement our combined network coverage with the JetBlue agreement."